Fernando Pessoa
Fernando Pessoa
Fernando Pessoa, born Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa, was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher, described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and one of the greatest poets in the Portuguese language. He also wrote in and translated from English and French...
NationalityPortuguese
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth13 June 1888
CityLisbon, Portugal
CountryPortugal
As we wash our body so we should wash destiny, change life as we change clothes.
I sometimes think that I enjoy suffering. But the truth is I would prefer something else.
I always live in the present. I don’t know the future and no longer have the past. The former oppresses me as the possibility of everything, the latter as the reality of nothing.
I'm sick of everything, and of the everythingness of everything.
I'd woken up early, and I took a long time getting ready to exist.
I bear the wounds of all the battles I avoided.
Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.
I'm the empty stage where various actors act out various plays.
There are no norms. All people are exceptions to a rule that doesn’t exist.
I've always rejected being understood. To be understood is to prostitute oneself. I prefer to be taken seriously for what I'm not, remaining humanly unknown, with naturalness and all due respect
I’ve dreamed a lot. I’m tired now from dreaming but not tired of dreaming. No one tires of dreaming, because to dream is to forget, and forgetting does not weigh on us, it is a dreamless sleep throughout which we remain awake. In dreams I have achieved everything.
Everything interests me, but nothing holds me.
We never love anyone. What we love is the idea we have of someone. It's our own concept—our own selves—that we love.
To love is to tire of being alone; it is therefore a cowardice, a betrayal of ourselves. (It is exceedingly important that we not love.)